Skepchick Quickies 10.4

Eagle Scouts returning our badges – Eagle Scouts is the highest level one can attain in the Boy Scouts. This is a collection of letters from Eagle Scouts returning their badges in protest of the BSA’s homophobia. Some letters mention the BSA’s discrimination against atheists and women, too.

Robots ready for firefighting duty – “The technology is supposed to reduce the exposure of human firefighters to extreme fires, the kind with additional complexities such as fuel explosions, chemical leaks, and nuclear meltdowns.” From CriticalDragon1177.

So far as I can tell, “The Myth of Male Decline” does not refute, or even address the same issue as, the original “male decline” articles. The latter are about a generation of young men sitting on the couch playing video games instead of going to college or getting jobs. The latter is about not-very-young men who still control most of society’s institutions. Both phenomenon can be real at the same time, though things get interesting as the men in control start to die off.

Funny, I’ve been meaning to submit the Eagle Scout site to the Quickies for a while now. In case anyone’s curious, and at the risk of drawing attention to myself, here’s the letter I sent returning my badge, and here’s a post on my mostly-dormant blog about sending it.

Really and truly, this is an area where Girl Guides has totally won and Boy Scouts has failed. In Guides there is no insistence on a higher power (the pledge is changeable and each guide if fre to include “my God” in their pledge or not) and no homophobia. That’s not to say that individual leaders may not bring those prejudices to a unit but it’s not Guide policy.

Perhaps this is a reflection of the way patriarchy still constrains men with “ideals” of masculinity that are more rigid than femininity. Thank you feminism.